They even mention Norman Hsu

The national attention to McCain's fundraising practices may be happening at an even faster pace than I had hoped. First McClatchy, now the Washington Post has a front page story "Bundler Collects From Unlikely Sources."

The generosity of Hess employees

As worrisome as some of the polling trends have been recently, I think there's a decent chance that, between the McCain camp's violations of campaign finance law that have already occurred, and the high likelihood of even more damaging violations coming to light, one of them might actually attract the notice of the national media and reach the level of scandal.

Today TPM has been doing work on the strange inflow of donations from Hess executives and employees after McCain's (not to be confused with Obama's) reversal on offshore drilling. Of particular interest to them are two donations of $28,500 each from a Hess-employed couple who apparently live in a rented apartment in Flushing, an area known more for its sports arenas than its concentration of high net worth individuals.

Sure, it seems so clumsy that you'd think there was no way the McCain campaign would try it. But politicians are never as circumspect as you'd think about this stuff. Remember Hillary bundler Norman Hsu and the three dozen Hill-raisers supposedly living in the same NorCal shanty?

It's not much to get excited about at this point, but I think of the campaign finance thing as a little call option or lottery ticket that may end up getting redeemed for the total implosion of John McCain's support.

"First since Watergate"

So Obama's opting out of public financing. No real surprise here. He had said he wouldn't, but then started raising cash by the truckload and had second thoughts. This is on balance an excellent thing, but it does require giving John McCain a golden opportunity to turn the sanctimony meter to 11.

I doubt that this is going to be a big deal, but it's kind of unfortunate that the AP (no link in solidarity with bloggers everywhere) is running the subhead "First since Watergate" which is prominently featured on Drudge, and which McCain used in his response. It's just bad luck for Obama that the rule happened to have been implemented in the wake of the original "-gate," as what he's doing, even though he said he wouldn't do it, is perfectly legal.

Unlike, say, what John McCain did when he opted into matching funds (to get the money and bypass the signature requirement) and then tried to get out once his campaign was solvent again. His request wasn't granted, but he continued to spend beyond the limit anyway! Sure, Obama didn't do what he said he'd do, and that's bad. But it's absurd that McCain can still play offense on the issue of campaign finance. He may have broken the McCain-Feingold Act.